Lecture 14: Adolescent Sexuality and Sexual Socialization

Dating and Early Sexual Experiences

• Started dating at 13-14 (girls) + 14-15 (boys)

• Early dating: Often starts in friend groups and based on superficial intimacy rather than a genuine closeness

• Sexual initiation: During 15-19 y.o. a majority become sexually active

Concerns about risks and consequences

• Adolescents highest STI rate of all age groups – 1-5 sexually active teens contract one each year

• 625,000 teen pregnancies in 2015

Gender differences in early dating and sexual experiences

Male sexual scripts

• Expected to be interested in sex; Part of being a man

• Expected to take the initiative

• Expected to focus on women’s appearance

• Avoid commitment + emotional attachment

Female sexual scripts

• Expected to be less interested in sex + more interested in love + relationships

• Act sexually passive

• Use bodies + looks in order to attract men; biggest asset

• Set sexual limits

• Little emphasis on own desire; Goal is to be desirable

How do these scripts affect early sexual experiences?

• Boy’s first sexual experience = Emotional intimacy is not needed, scoring

• Girls’ first sexual experience = Often tied to feelings of love and intimacy

i.e. summer nights from Grease

• Gender scripts can be very constraining because if they step outside of the box, they would be called names

Sexual Socialization

• Definition: What and how we learn about sexuality and sexual relationships

Multidimensional process

• Learning involves many issues

• Input of info comes in diff forms (non-verbal, ambiguous, or through convos)

• Input received across the lifespan

• Info comes from several sources (peers, partner, parents)

Common Sources of Sexual Communication

• Parents are seen as initial sexuality educators

• Peers, school abt contraception, media often cited as most important

• Source of information varies by the topic

Nature of Parental Communication about Sexuality

• American parents typically give minimal direct, verbal info 

• Focus of communication is often on biology, physical development, and sexual safety  

• Minimal discussion of sexual pleasure and feelings  

• Approx 2/3 of young people have talked to their parents about sexuality. Quantities vary by topic  

• Mothers tend to discuss issues more than fathers 

• Parents tend to believe that they were more communicative than chn perceive them to be  

Impact of Parental Communication on Early Sexual Behavior

• Expectation is that parental input will be beneficial 

• Reality is there is mixed results in the field  

• Some studies find parent/chd comm. Is associated with a delay of sexual intercourse + safer sex practices  

• Handful reports opposite association. Others report no associations  

Widman et al. (2016)

• Meta-analysis: Examined 52 studies, 71 effect sizes of the impact of comm. on safer-sex behavior 

• Average r=10*, but it is not significant for boys, or from Dads  

Causes for mixed results

• Research has viewed parental communication too simplistically

  • Focus on amount over content of comm.

  • Doesn’t considered gender scripts

Comparison of the Nature + Impact of Sexual Communication from Parents to Peers (Ward lab findings)

• Participants indicate the extent to which parents (peers) have comm. to them, 24 messages 

• Level of exposure to each theme is different depending on the sources (Graph) 

 

• Parents and peers differ in the nature of the sexual themes and messages conveyed  

  • Parents- Relational, abstinence  

  • Peers – Sex-pos, gendered, relations  

• Different messages have different contributions to sexual health and risk behaviors  

  • Most beneficial: Parental relational + parental sex-positive discourses

  • More troubling: Parental abstinence, peer-gendered discourses

media and adolescent sexuality from Ward lab findings

• The more exposure, the more you are likely to believe what you see on TV (Cultivation Theory)

  • TV Programs

  • Music videos

• Both correlational and experimental data indicate that media use does play a role in shaping student’s attitudes about sexual relationships. Related to:

  • Holding more stereotypical notions abt female and male sexual roles

  • More traditional gender role attitudes

  • A stronger acceptance of recreational attitudes about sex (game-playing) and of the sexual objectification of women

• Both exposure levels and viewer involvement (Viewing to learn, identification, perceived realism) are important mechanisms

  • Endorsing these gendered sexual scripts affects sexual & mental health

  • young men, linked to an increased number of sexual partners

  • boys, linked to diminished well-being

  • young women, linked to diminished sexual agency (Confidence) + increased acceptance of sexualized aggression (Boys will be boys)

Encourage youth to be critical media consumers

media and adolescent sexuality from READING 4 (Kinsler et al., 2019)

• Lack of sexual education and reproductive content within media and lacked promoting low risk sex behaviors

• Believed that there is enough non-heteronormative characteristics in media

• Believed television is a good source for adolescents to learn about sex

Adolescent STIs & pregnancy - rates, consequences; lesbian, gay, bisexual youth

Heredity could contribute to sexual orientation, suggested it’s X-Linked

• Girls exposed with high lvls of androgens or estrogens are more likely to be gay

Higher engagement of sexual activity with more poverished areas, high activity in Af-Amer.

Contraception remains stagnant over the years

STI 1-5 teenagers contract them each year

89% of teenager births in US, usually economically disadvantaged ethnic minority teens or unmarried

1 out of 4 adolescent pregnancies end with an abortion

Prevention - School resources and talks with parent